


everything that frightens us

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e12 Lunar Ellipse, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 09:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek remembers what it was to be sixteen and to think himself in love</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything that frightens us

Derek remembers what it was to be sixteen and to think himself in love – the bright burn of his feelings for Kate, the heady power of having been chosen. He remembers how grown he felt, how sure of himself – a knife's point certainty that mixed with the pitch of his stomach and the prickling at his palms to make him reckless. He loved her, loved the way she loved him, loved the things she taught him about his own body, and he fell, so far and fast there was nothing that could cushion his landing, no way to shore up against her spite and rage.

Which is why he banks his feelings now, rakes out the embers and hopes they'll cool. Stiles is seventeen, persistent and present, often afraid and brave despite it, the one Derek trusts to use his brain and think. He's no longer fearful of Derek, gets right in his face and demands he do more, be better, and Derek wants to do both. Stiles has wormed his way past all of Derek's defenses, and all Derek can is refuge behind a mask of indifference – indifference that shatters on the point of Jennifer's tongue.

She said she didn't know where Stiles might find his father, and Derek had felt his anger surge. He bit it back, spoke as though he were calm, too helplessly aware of Stiles across the room, of his steady gaze and fuck-you tears. Everything after became about family, about Derek's own and Stiles', almost lost, about Scott and Allison, about Lydia's screams. _Pack_ drove him forward, pushed pain through his blood, lit up his body as he fought for their lives. Claws and teeth, bruises and blood – then this, an absent howling, peace born from a storm.

He runs with Scott – the hospital's crowded when they arrive but they listen, smell, and find their pack. Stiles is slumped in a chair with a white gauze square taped to his temple, and Scott runs his hands down his arms, hugs him in close. But there's Allison, too, and Stiles shoos him away, settles back to his position of waiting, elbows on his knees, feet bouncing. He's dusted with dirt; his fingernails are broken. Derek finds himself drawn toward him, and he crouches, takes Stiles' chin in his hand, turns his head and looks at the dressing. 

"It's nothing," Stiles says. "Just – crashed my car."

"That's not nothing."

"It's not ritual sacrifice or a duel to the death with some fucked up druid," Stiles says, and tilts his head, pulls out of Derek's grasp.

Derek stays still. "How's your dad?"

Stiles scrubs a hand over his face, leans back in his chair. "Rope burn, dehydration, cuts from the glass. Bruises. A goddamn goose-egg on the back of his head that they've sent him to CT to check out." He lets out an unsteady breath, and closes his eyes for a moment. "Sorry. Adrenaline crash."

"You eat?" asks Derek.

"No."

"Water?"

"I'll get some, I just need a minute . . . "

"Stay here." Derek might be a beta but there's alpha in his voice; Stiles doesn't move as Derek heads to the vending machines, selects most of the food he's seen Stiles devour while researching, finds the water cooler and fills a paper cup. "Here," he says, sitting in the chair beside Stiles, proffering the Snickers bar, the peanut-butter crackers, the sun chips, the water.

Stiles looks at him, bemused, but accepts it all, tears the paper on the Snickers bar and bites down with relish. "S'good," he says, and he sounds so tired, so wrecked that Derek has to curl his fingers into the palm of his hand so that he won't reach out and touch. Stiles falls asleep before the Snickers bar is done, head tipped back against the wall, exposing his throat, and the wolf in Derek wants to circle him, bare his teeth to anyone who'd approach; he growls when a nurse turns the corner, remembers himself and turns it into a cough.

It's the pre-dawn shift change before Stiles stirs. He flinches, jerks to sit up in his chair and says, "Where am I?" before he sees Derek's face. He blinks at him, thumbs the side of his mouth where he's been drooling just a little. "Time is it?" he amends.

"5am, give or take," says Derek.

"You've been here all night?"

"Couldn't just leave," Derek says.

Stiles narrows his eyes, watches Derek thoughtfully. "They say anything about my dad?"

"Just that he's fine. He has his own room – 314 if you want to go up."

Stiles sits, watching silently, and Derek has to school himself not to shift under his gaze. "You do a terrible job of pretending you don't care about people," Stiles says at last.

Derek says nothing, makes no move. He's grown used to hiding in plain sight.

Stiles reaches out and pats his arm. "I'd better go see my dad," he says, and eases up out of the chair, wincing and rolling his shoulders. "Thanks for . . . you know."

Derek does know, and leaves the moment Stiles is gone.

*****

The knock at the door of the loft comes next morning. Derek is up, hasn't showered, pulls on jeans and t-shirt from the day before. He listens to the heartbeat of the person waiting, scents the air, knows it's Stiles by the too-quick flutter of his pulse and the smell of his sweat. He spreads his hands against the kitchen counter, pushes down every impulse to give vent to the low-level worry he's felt, steadies his breathing and only answers the door when Stiles knocks again.

"I wake you up, big guy?" asks Stiles when Derek rolls back the door.

"No." Derek folds his arms across his chest; it's transparent and he feels like an idiot. "Why didn't you use your key?"

Stiles screws up his mouth and raises an eyebrow. "Touché." He stands watching Derek for a long, quiet moment. "Can I come in?"

Derek steps back to let him pass, then pads back to the kitchen to put on coffee. His hands itch to touch; he needs something else for them to do.

"So," Stiles says, rounding the kitchen counter and leaning against it. "What's up with you?"

"Nothing."

Stiles sighs and shifts his feet. "I mean – what's _up_ with you?"

Derek sets the coffee to brewing, turns around. "I don't follow."

"You stayed all night. At the hospital," says Stiles.

Derek feels his heart pinch, looks down at his own feet for a second before he replies. "You're pack."

"The whole damn pack was _there_ , and it was me you stayed with."

Derek breathes out slowly. "I just . . . " He tucks his hands beneath his arms as if that might protect him from Stiles' persistence.

"You just what?" asks Stiles, pulling his hands out of the pocket of his hoodie, coming closer. "What aren't you saying?"

Derek takes a step back. He's not proud of it – something twists sharply in his chest at the gesture of retreat. "Stiles."

"Derek."

Derek sighs, scrubs a hand across his face as he tries to think of what to say next. "What do you want?"

"I want you to admit you like me," Stiles says.

Derek looks at him sharply, sees the bravado in his face. He could crush that in a second, let him down so hard that he'd barely be able to pick up the pieces. But his common sense runs against everything he feels; to be the cause of more hurt, so close to what happened at the moon, feels bone-deep wrong, no matter that it could save them both.

Stiles steps even closer.

"I can't," Derek manages, startled into speaking on the edge of panic.

"Why not?"

"Because you're seventeen." 

Stiles laughs mirthlessly. "That's it?"

"It's plenty."

"Maybe if I were some other version of me. A me who doesn't – " Stiles gestures wildly " – purposefully almost die to save my father, who drives his car off the road in the middle of a storm, who deals with Darachs and Ducalion and Deaton and _you_."

"I know what it's like," Derek grits out between his teeth.

"No you don't! Because you were born to this life . . . "

"To be young and . . . and . . . " Derek falters. He can't bring himself to presume the words.

Stiles breaks off and draws back as though he's been punched. "Is this about Kate?"

Derek clenches his jaw but doesn’t look away.

Stiles shakes his head, looking suddenly beaten down with sadness. "You think you're like her?" he asks.

"I'm – "

"Because last I checked you're not a homicidal maniac," says Stiles. "I'd check your references, but, oh, I _am_ your references."

"Stiles . . . "

"You do the right thing," says Stiles, spreading his arms. "You care about us. You'd lay down your life for any of us – you went out there two nights ago for our _families_ . . . "

Derek closes his eyes as if that can ward off the entire conversation, struggles to control his fast-beating heart. He hears Stiles come closer, the rustle of his clothing, expects the touch of Stiles' hands at his elbows before it comes.

"I have jerked off thinking of you more times than I can count," Stiles says softly. Derek's stomach lurches. "You were this . . . terrible fantasy. And then you became real."

Derek opens his eyes. "What does that even mean?"

"It means I know what I'm doing. I know _you_."

And Derek realizes, in that instant, that he could never have claimed to have known Kate – that he never knew her family, never knew her life. He knew how she made him feel; he knew that he turned her on; he knew that she wanted him, although he didn't know why. Stiles, on the other hand, knows everything – his favorite time of day, the way he takes his coffee; knows what scares him and what merely draws his contempt. Stiles has known him at his worst and seems to see him at his best. Derek's breathing quickens. This is terrifying. The words form in his mouth and he thinks one last time of saying nothing, but says, all the same, "are you sure?"

"I'm sure," says Stiles.

When they kiss there's an awkward bump of noses – Stiles laughs before he shifts to meet Derek's mouth – then the only sound filling Derek's ears Is the clatter of Stiles' heart, the thump of his own. He tilts his head, licks at Stiles' lips, shivers at the touch of Stiles' tongue. He pulls back, breathless already, cups the back of Stile's head with one hand. "I like you," he says, because Stiles wanted to hear it, because it makes Stiles' smile and sway in to kiss him again. Derek's body thrums with pleasure, with the recognition of simple rightness, and he shuffles Stiles back against the counter, presses in close to steal another kiss.

When they part, Derek drops his head to Stiles' shoulder, lets Stiles scritch his fingertips through the hair above the nape of his neck. "You dumbass," says Stiles.

"Opinionated, aren't we," murmurs Derek.

Stiles turns his head and kisses Derek's ear. "Always," he whispers, and holds Derek close, hums softly when Derek hugs him back, seems content to stand and be still for this, this feeling between them, this brand new thing.

**Author's Note:**

> "Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”   
> ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet


End file.
